Cess- Pools 105 



taken from it. They also prevented the squandering of 

 much national wealth. The impoverishment of large 

 tracts of once fertile soil in Europe and America may be 

 contrasted with the undiminished fertility of the culti- 

 vated lands in China and Japan, where great care is 

 taken to return the waste products from towns and 

 villages to the soil. 



The rapid growth of cities in the nineteenth century, 

 the increasing density of population, and the constantly 

 growing volume of human waste, created conditions 

 which, in the course of time, became a menace to health. 

 The numerous cess-pools made the soil in cities black 

 and soggy with fetid, undecomposed wastes; the shallow 

 wells became polluted by surface washing and infiltration, 

 and the death-rate from typhoid and other intestinal 

 diseases became abnormally high. The old methods of 

 sewage-disposal were no longer adequate for the changed 

 needs of modern life. Sewerage systems, based on the 

 dilution and removal of the human wastes in water, 

 came into existence ; the privy and cess-pool were, to 

 a great extent, abolished in the larger cities. The sanitary 

 conditions at once showed a marked improvement. 



The new method of the nineteenth century. It was not 

 long, however, before the new method of sewage-disposal 

 gave rise to serious misgivings. The rivers into which 

 the constantly growing volume of sewerage was being 

 poured became grossly polluted and frequently offensive 

 to sight and smell. Fish could not live in such water, 

 and complaints came from towns and cities farther 

 down on the streams that their water-supplies were 

 being poisoned. These conditions finally forced munici- 



